


Looks so Perfect (standing there)

by no_big_deal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crush at First Sight, Doctor/Patient, F/M, First Meetings, Minor Injuries, no pregnancy or babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25190554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_big_deal/pseuds/no_big_deal
Summary: Dr. Ben Solo can't wait to be done with the orthopedic rounds of his residency at Pittsburgh University Medical Center. He wants the excitement and acclaim of cardiothroasic surgery, not the repetition and drudgery of dealing with broken bones.Enter Rey Johnson: a stunning, no-nonsense Brit with a fractured foot.A short fic where two nice, good-looking people take turns staring at each other and nothing untoward happens.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 21
Kudos: 68
Collections: 9 Squares Reylo Challenge





	Looks so Perfect (standing there)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [@darkangel4066](https://twitter.com/darkangel4066) for the super speedy and thorough beta read!
> 
> The prompt for this fic is from my Reylo 9 Squares challenge: Run.

Ben sighed as he flipped through old patient files at the nurses’ station. This ortho round was just… not that exciting. He felt bad for thinking it, but he just didn’t find orthopedic cases all that interesting. 

He wanted to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, operating on hearts and lungs, saving people’s lives with cutting edge procedures and tech. Why did he have to spend months treating patients without heart failure of any kind? Okay, okay, he knew _ why… _ but that didn’t make this phase of his residency any easier. In the last week, he’d dealt with two pediatric fractures (wrist, arm) and four geriatric ones (hip, hip, hip and you guessed it… hip).

It was all so straightforward. Broken? Cast it. Sprained? Wrap and ice. And painkillers, painkillers, painkillers. He’d never written so many prescriptions. 

When it came down to it, the thing he resented most was not being able to  _ cure  _ his orthopedic patients. The only thing that would fix them was  _ time  _ – and the healing abilities of their own bodies. As a heart surgeon, he knew he’d be able to take a sick person and return them to health, in some cases practically overnight. Orthopedics was different – he was the manager of a  _ process. _ It was boring and slow. Not what he’d signed up for.

A series of soft beeps over the intercom caught his attention. Hearing his name called, he slid down from where he’d propped himself up on the station desk, straightened his white coat, and made his way towards the emergency department, quickly stopping by radiology to pick up the x-rays of his brand new patient.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Rey struggled to get comfortable on the exam table with her left leg straight out in front of her. It had been awhile since she’d done her stretches and her hamstring was aching but it felt almost pleasant compared to the shooting pain in her foot.

She shook her head and shrugged quickly, willing away the frustration that bubbled up inside of her. No time for tears—time to focus on facts. She was a British citizen visiting the United States through the Urban Arts Exchange Program between Pittsburgh and Sheffield. She had gone for a morning jog and missed a step on a downtown curb, fallen, and probably broken something. The side-eye she’d received at the admitting desk didn’t give her much hope that she’d be escaping this American hospital without a serious dent to her credit limit. She closed her eyes and tried not to give in to self pity. She felt very lonely and okay, fine—a little scared.

Nurse Tico—who had wheeled her from admitting to radiology and then over to a sheeted cubicle in the emergency department—had been chatty and friendly, joking with Rey to distract her from her discomfort. But the nurse had moved on and now Rey waited for the doctor to arrive with her x-ray. And hopefully some pain meds.

“Ms…Johnson?” Ben read the name off his clipboard as he pushed aside the curtain and stopped short. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting when he came around the corner, but a leggy, pretty brunette looking up at him with wide, wet eyes certainly wasn’t it.

Rey felt her breath catch in her throat as her doctor came into view. Okay, so he was tall. Very tall. Wide shoulders. Luscious dark hair and kind brown eyes. And handsome. Obviously. Strikingly, even. She tried to blink and failed.  _ Oh boy _ .

“I’m, uh, Doctor Solo...” Ben looked back at the chart in an attempt to clear his head of the absolute  _ vision  _ of long, tanned legs extending from mint green jogging shorts laid out before him. “You, uh, broke your foot?” he asked, inwardly cringing at how  _ ignorant  _ the question sounded.

Rey was still unable to blink, her brain on the fritz as she admired his strong and frankly,  _ amazing _ bone structure. Her eyes drifted further down—her mental processors cuting out completely as she took in her doctor’s full, kissable lips. 

It took her a minute to remember he had asked her a question. “I, I think so. My foot is broken. That’s what the nurse thought. I mean." She felt her cheeks heat. "You’re the one with the x-ray. Right?” Her eyes crossed as she looked up at him, lingering on his mouth. “Dr. Solo?” 

It took Ben a little while to catch up. Her lilting British accent had caught him off guard. It was so unexpected and  _ adorable.  _ He felt his heart actually skip a beat and start up again, double-time. 

“Oh, oh right!” Ben dove back into Ms. Johnson’s file for the transparency, stepping next to her to hold the x-ray between her eyes and the light. From this angle, directly above her, he could see that her eyes were a rich hazel green; with effort he turned his attention to the x-ray. 

“You see, right here,” he gestured with his free hand and took a few moments to explain the nature of the fracture to her. Luckily, this was a straightforward endeavor that his mouth could do on auto-pilot since his brain had decided to ponder the fetching blush suffusing Ms. Johnson’s charmingly freckled face, and wasn't concerned with her broken foot. Clearing his throat, he let her know it looked as if the break was clean and would heal easily. She wouldn't even need a cast.

She nodded in understanding, worriedly sucking in her lower lip. Ben could hardly tear his eyes away from the sight of her lush bottom lip as it ripened from a pale pink to a deep rose pressed between her teeth. 

After a moment, she turned her attention away from the transparency and back to him, apparently satisfied with his explanation; he set the x-ray on a side table and crouched down by her ankle. 

“I have to do a quick examination, and then we can get you some pain medicine, okay? Let me know if anything hurts too badly.” At her nervous, smiling assent, he wrapped his hand around the back of her heel, lifting her foot up from the exam table. 

Rey gasped as an undefinable mixture of pleasure and pain zinged up her leg at his touch. She closed her eyes to stop from visibly rolling them at… herself. This would  _ not _ do. 

Telling herself she was high on adrenaline from the accident and feeling vulnerable in a strange city, she tried to rein in her emotions. It wouldn’t do to get all dopey over good-looking Dr. Solo. No matter how gentle his hands. Or serious and soulful his eyes. 

_ Talk about the real McDreamy,  _ she thought. But she could handle this. She was strong. She released her breath and opened her eyes, feeling in control again.

“Ms. Johnson?” Dr. Solo asked. His voice was a deep rumble that flayed Rey’s newly established equilibrium. “How does that feel? Too painful?” 

Rey smiled as much as she could, gritting out a “No, no, not too bad.” She gulped down a breath, the spike of adrenaline giving her courage. “But please, call me Rey.” It was an impulsive invitation, but she just  _ had  _ to hear her name cross those sinful lips of his. 

“Sure thing, Rey.” Ben smiled back up at her, feeling the skin wrinkle around his eyes. It was easy to smile at her; he couldn't seem to stop doing it. “I’m Ben,” he said, lightly resting his fingertips on the arch of her foot. 

He glanced down, trying to think about her fracture, not her soft skin, not her shapely, sexy legs, and most definitely not the arousal he felt building in his gut. Because  _ that  _ was inappropriate. 

He refused to think about what  _ that  _ was, or why it existed in the first place. He turned back towards Ms. Johnson—Rey—to finish his examination.

Rey shivered as Ben ran his fingers over the top of her foot, stopping over the area of the fracture to feel the minute shifting of the bones and tendons beneath her sensitive and swollen skin. It was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help herself – Rey blushed as Ben bent over her lower leg, his thick, dark hair occasionally brushing softly against her knee as he continued his assessment in silence. With limited success, Rey tried not to think about Ben's lips pressing soft kisses on her shin, or her knee, or … other places. 

Ben marveled at the delicate structure of Rey’s ankle; the elegant shape of her foot had him reevaluating his thoughts about orthopedics.  _ Now  _ he saw the appeal. The human body was truly a wonder and, well. He blushed; Rey’s body was one of the more wonderful ones he’d ever come in contact with. He readjusted his grip on her ankle, holding more of her calf in his hand than he had before. 

Rey giggled. “Good thing I’m not ticklish, hmm?” She laughed again as his fingertips traced the arch of her foot for the third time. "Right doctor Ben?" 

“What’s that?” Ben asked, her voice knocking him out of his reverie. Her laughter was like  _ sunshine. _ His mind was racing with incessant repetitive observations about her warm eyes, long legs, pretty freckles. This girl had him completely off his game. He was taken aback by how completely he’d been knocked off his feet by this beautiful, charming…  _ patient. _ He groaned inwardly. This had to stop. He needed to wrap this up. 

This morning, all he'd wanted out of life was to be the premier cardiothoracic surgeon of his generation. But now, it was like his own heart was out of control. He also wanted to hold Rey, and to never let go. He wanted to hear her laugh again. He wanted to make her smile. He wanted to give her anything and everything she needed. He took a deep breath and looked back down at Rey's broken foot.

He refocused. What Rey  _ needed  _ right now was for him to finish this exam. He was her  _ doctor, _ even if just for today _. _ He knew better than this. He  _ was  _ better than this. 

For her part, Rey wasn’t sure why her attempt at levity had Ben scowling all of a sudden, his lips pursing up in apparent distaste at her weak attempt at flirting. It felt like rejection, his frown causing a curious little pain in her heart, like a pinprick or a papercut. 

Rey sighed. A handsome, successful doctor like Ben probably had women throwing themselves at him all the time and she had probably just irritated him. She leaned back, wincing in embarrassment and setting her hurt feelings aside, as Ben propped her foot against a pillow. 

Finished with the examination, Ben wrapped Rey's foot with an ace bandage and pulled an ice pack out of storage. Then, he went about silently writing prescriptions and the order for a walking boot. He tried not to look over at her as he did so, and bit his tongue to prevent starting a conversation that wasn’t about her injury. 

Rey watched him as he wrote, his lips pursing and flattening, his jaw working furiously as he concentrated. It didn’t do anything to dampen her interest; quite the contrary. His intensity intrigued her. She just wished it was directed at her, perhaps with his arms around her, prior to a passionate—No. It wouldn’t do to follow that thought any further. 

After a few moments, he handed her a neat stack of paperwork. Rey had hoped that perhaps their fingertips would brush together, but he was very careful. Of course, he had only touched her for the exam.  _ Very proper, _ she thought, with grudging respect. 

“So, do you have someone waiting for you, to drive you home?” He asked, avoiding her eyes.

Rey frowned, trying not to feel hurt at Ben’s indifferent tone. Of course he would only act concerned for her as long as his duties required. Only in her imagination was anything else happening with this gorgeous man. She took a deep breath, trying to remember his question. 

“Uh… no, I’m visiting, from the UK. I’ll just get a taxi back to the Hyatt…” She trailed off, feeling silly. Her adrenaline buzz was winding down. He hadn’t asked for all that information. She must be getting tired.

But to her surprise, Ben latched on to her words, turning towards her again and stepping close, requiring her to tilt her head back to keep her eyes on his. 

“The Hyatt, that’s just down the block. You’re from out of town?” He gazed at her questioningly, the skin between his eyes gathering in concern. “How are you going to get your prescriptions filled? You’ll need to eat something,” he trailed off, looking helplessly at her for a moment before straightening his broad shoulders and nodding at her in a decisive manner, though Rey had no idea what it was he had actually decided. 

To be continued..?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love it if you'd drop a kudos and please [come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/spoonfulofsalad)!


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